When automatic analyzers are used to analyze samples such as blood, urine, and the like in clinical assay, many treatments need to be performed depending on requests. Examples include centrifugal separation of samples, dispensation of samples into the special vessels of each automatic analyzer, and attachment of barcode labels to sample vessels. Sample inspection automation systems are designed to perform such treatments automatically and are being used in many hospitals and inspections centers for labor saving and higher efficiency.
Vessels containing blood, urine, or other sample are placed on a carrier used to transfer samples (usually called a rack or a sample vessel holder) and loaded into a sample inspection automation system. Depending on what properties are measured, they are subjected to various treatments. Examples include centrifugal treatment, de-capping for removing the caps of the vessels, dispensation of a sample into several vessels (i.e., dispensation to create daughter samples from a parent sample), attachment of barcode labels to daughter sample vessels, capping for attaching caps to the daughter sample vessels, classified storage of parent and daughter samples for later use, and analysis of daughter samples by transferring daughter sample racks to automatic analyzers. Devices that perform such treatments are connected by transfer lines and constitute a sample inspection automation system.
Patent Document 1 discloses a sample inspection automation system in which a common tray is used both in the sample loading unit and in the storage unit and a single holder is used to transfer a sample along the transfer line.